(Sunday, December 30, 2018 9:57:56 AM)
Knicks center Enes Kanter sounded off on his reduced playing time following a miserable night in Utah, relays Marc Berman of the New York Post. Kanter was pulled from the starting lineup earlier this season to give a more prominent to rookie Mitchell Robinson. With Robinson injured, Kanter remains a reserve as the team tries […]
(Sunday, December 30, 2018 12:55:14 PM)
DENVER — Enes Kanter vs. the Knicks is just beginning. With Kanter finally letting out his bottled-up feelings, there’s probably only one logical solution — the Knicks center’s departure from the roster in either a trade or buyout. It couldn’t be more obvious that Knicks coach David Fizdale has no use for Kanter any longer….
(Sunday, December 30, 2018 8:04:07 AM)
DENVER – It was fitting Emmanuel Mudiay left Saturday’s epic blowout loss in Utah with a sprained ankle. Ankle sprains were a part of his sour three seasons with the Nuggets and the Knicks were set to play them on New Year’s Day. Mudiay said in the dour visitor’s locker room in Salt Lake City…
42 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.12.31)”
On one hand, you can admire Kanter’s spirit in the fact that he wants to fight for wins and play well. But on the other, he’s becoming a cancer. You can’t complain about your playing time and numbers when you are playing more and shooting more than you did last season, but with less starts. If he can’t see what he’s getting just because he isn’t starting- all the while bitching to the media- DUMP HIM NOW. Play small ball from here on in and wait patiently for MitchRob.
Apparently Kanter wants to be the next Noah
Where else in the world can you get paid 18 million a year NOT to work!!! His rude awakening comes in the summer……
It is possible that his agent is working behind the scenes to find a new home for him and there are no trade takers. Ergo, he is agitating for an outright release. In a realm filled with narcissistic megalomaniacs, he is top flight.
He also complained, but less, when Robinson became the starter instead of him. I think that move probably made more sense to him. Fizdale said he was going defense first and maybe Kanter somewhat bought it. But there has been no similar rationale stated for starting Kornet. Fizdale says he just wants to see what Kornet can do. Kanter’s a proud, outspoken and feisty guy. I think his reaction is just him being him.
Kanter has no self awareness at all. In his mind he plays hard, scores well around the basket, and gets lots of rebounds. His mind matches what the boxscore models say. The fact that he gets targeted in P&Rs constantly, can’t defend against it, can’t defend the rim, and that teams are clearly worse when he’s on the court, is less obvious and not apparent to him.
@ 5, I agree that he has no self-awareness. But I cannot imagine that his coaches have not advised him of his profound defensive deficiencies. When he was routinely benched down the stretch at OKC, I would think that he was so advised. When there was no market for him this past offseason, I would guess that his agent would sugarcoat the reason, but still inform him of them. He is an intelligent and good man, who chooses not to listen. That he made some effort to develop a 3 point shot suggests that there has been some dialogue around adapting his game to the current paradigm for 5’s.
Congratulations Cdiggy and Farfa!
Kanter’s just being himself. He’s not got much of a filter. I don’t think he sulked through the Jazz game, I think he just can’t take it inside against Gobert. He’s not unique in that. He played the same defense he always does, it was just accompanied by sucking on the other end. I figure that in his head, matador defense is ‘avoiding stupid fouls.’ If he were more self-possessed he probably wouldn’t be persona non grata with Erdogan and estranged from his father.
Trevor Booker said everything you need to know about Kanter all the way back in 2015:
I for one am sick of Kanter and would be perfectly happy if they just waived him. He’s the new Al Jefferson, who I believe is now playing in China. Kanter will be there soon.
Meanwhile in OKC, while Paul George is having a career year, his running mate Russ is having his worse season ever . Last night 4-25, currently posting an abysmal TS% of .478.
OTOH, the man averages a triple double. I’ve always found him a hard player to evaluate, the number of triple doubles is pretty astounding, but he’s always been a pretty bad shooter and commits some hellacious turnovers in big spots.
Where would you rank him among today’s stars and for his career?
Enes Kanter factored strongly in the decision to trade Willy. That’s so fucking stupid.
It’s a shame how things worked out. We were still probably better off trading Melo than buying him out, but Kanter is the primary reason we had a glut at C that spilled over into us losing a good contract on Hernangomez and creating the blowup with Noah. However, I think we picked up Robinson with the 2nd round pick we got out of that deal. If we loved Robinson that much maybe we could have bought a 2nd rounder and got him anyway, but still I’d rather have Robinson than Willy and we got a couple of picks for Willy (not that I liked that deal at all).
Pipe dream: if we had traded Melo to OKC earlier in that offseason, before they traded Paul George, perhaps we could have gotten 1 of Oladipo or Sabonis? Or has my dementia now become full-blown? I know, yes to both. 😉
The Melo deal was great. We got an asset for a terrible player without taking on any extra salary.
The decision to prioritize the playing time of Enes fucking Kanter over Willy was totally separate. I think I said on the day of the trade that they should try to find a deal for Kanter and when that inevitably doesn’t materialize they should just waive him. All he ever should’ve been to us is a salary.
I’m not sure they can waive Kanter; I mean they can, but they may have to accept the team option for next year to do so. There is some rule about waiving players with team options, but I don’t know the details. That would be bad for our cap, obviously.
Would be interesting to know why Willy has basically fallen out of the rotation in Charlotte. His numbers are, as usual, amazing, and he’s shooting nearly 50% from 3 point range on limited attempts. Presumably it’s defense.
Meanwhile as this season has taken a hairpin turn into the dumpster again, it’s useful to remember that on Nov 14 Fizdale took Ntilikina and Doston out of the starting lineup, and then just a few days later took Mitchell Robinson out of the starting lineup to create the offensive juggernaut lineup of Mudiay, THJ, Knox, Vonleh, and Kanter.
Lineup data:
We started with the Defense First lineup of:
Frank, THJ, Dotson, Vonleh, MRob: 194 possessions, 99.5 DRtg (98th percentile), 107.2 ORtg (34th percentile), Net rating of +7.7 (88th percentile).
But we had “trouble getting into an offensive rhythm” so we then eventually switched to the OFFENSIVE JUGGERNAUT lineup of :
Mudiay, THJ, Knox, Vonleh, Kanter: 325 possessions, DRtg 121.1 (1st percentile, not in a good way), ORtg 103.7 (15th percentile), Net rating of -17.4 (1st percentile).
There is no way that Fizdale isn’t in on the #tank.
(Btw in a teeny weeny 44 possession sample size, Mudiay/THJ/Knox/Vonleh/Kornet has an ORtg of 136.4 and a DRtg of 106.8).
Kanter literally is the tank commander.
Mudiay, THJ, Trier, Knox, MRob: 88 possessions, 125.3 Drtg (Zero’th percentile), 100 ORtg (5th percentile)
He doesn’t have a team option in 2019-20–> he’s an unrestricted FA full stop. He had a 2018-19 player option that he exercised (which he 100% should have because he probably would’ve lost $15+MM if he didn’t).
sorry for the un-deleted lineup data at the end of comment 15- – what happened to the edit function btw?
@18 I was wondering the same thing.
Meant to reply to #17
I don’t get to watch Willy play all that much, but I’ve never found much evidence that indicates he’s a major problem on defense. I haven’t even heard rumors about this, but I’m going to speculate anyway. I suspect Willy may like to party.
well FWIW Willy is 57th out of 61 centers in DRPM. 61st out of 61 is, of course, our BFF Kanter. And he is 61st (and not 60th) by a country mile.
Willy was really bad on defense when he was here. I don’t know why people on here like to downplay it.
Doesn’t mean that we should’ve traded him.
Fizdale is doing his job. His job is (1) tank and (2) coax something out of our young dumpster dive finds. So far he’s hit on both accounts. The only real complaint is Ntilikina’s play. However, I don’t think that’s on Fizdale.
Although Ntilikina would benefit more from a system than the other players here, benching him cannot possibly make him any worse than he was already playing. And the argument that he would improve by playing is clearly contradicted by Ntilikina’s actual performance before the benching.
The Jets retained Maccagnan as GM. I think their ownership may be worse than the Knicks. The guy has a brutal four year drafting and FA signing record (Trumaine Johnson is the cherry on top). At least they have Darnold, but with little else on offense to help him, and an awful defense that they’ve spent a lot of high draft picks on in recent years.
Sorry, just venting. Happy New Years!
BTW, if Willy does like to party, that might explain moving on from him, to avoid additional bad influences for KP.
Agree-
I love Darnold but why does Maccagnan get basically full immunity based on that pick? Seriously he could’ve picked either Deshaun Watson or Mahomes last season and would’ve had 3 extra 2nd round picks to fix the offensive line, WR corps, etc.
2017/2018 – 28th of 58
2016/2017 – 44 of 48
So he’s here for developing the young players, but when a young player takes a big step backwards, that doesn’t reflect on him? So if a young player improves, it’s because of Fizdale, but if they get worse, it’s on the player?
@27
Mudiay? Well, he’s finally in shape and hitting lots of midrange shots. Could it being a very important contract year be a major factor with him?
Still, let’s give Fiz the rest of the year and see where Frank, Trier, and Robinson end up.
@25
He’s been busy taking defensive guys high to build an elite defense. D’oh! He never takes OL in the first three rounds. In fact, that’s a Jet tradition to go on the cheap for mediocre to bad OL since they drafted Brick and Mangold lo those many years ago… It’s almost a lock that they’ll go edge rusher #1 this draft and overpay a couple of crap veteran OL.
He’d rather badly reach for a Christian Hackenberg in the 2nd round than take a talented young OL.
I have no real beef with Fizdale, I just don’t like the “Fiz magic” stuff when there doesn’t really to seem to be anything to back it up, ya know? I am more than willing to see what he can do with a real team before I really judge the guy one way or the other.
I don’t know what else we’re supposed to expect from Kanter. He’s in a contract year, is only 26 and plays a position that isn’t receiving the huge contracts it did when he signed his extension. He plays for a shitty team and is told he is not going to be a part of the rotation moving forward. If I were him, I’d be livid. They’re fucking with his next paycheck during an all-out tank, and that’s factorial.
I live in Charlotte and from what I’ve seen Willy seems to thrive during garbage time. I don’t know how to filter that out, but if someone else does it may be enlightening.
That’s a problem with tanking I’ve brought up a few times. It’s certainly worse in a contract year, but even if not, if you bench a veteran that deserves minutes, you are messing with their careers and joy of playing. It can cause problems. That’s why the right way to do it is to wait until late in the season. In Kanter’s case, we should probably just release him. I don’t see us getting an asset out of moving him unless we are willing to use space and have given up the fantasy of Durant etc..
Kanter would play if he played defense, but he doesn’t. His inability to stop a pick and roll is what’s messing with his paycheck, not Fizdale’s decision to play a center who can shoot threes and protect the rim. Kanter should definitely be mad he’s not playing, but the Knicks should just cut him and be done with it.
No one forced Kanter to opt in.
Great point, Nick. It’s hard to say, “You’re screwing me over!” when you opted in knowing that this would be a tanking season, after you made all sorts of noise about wanting to play for a winner.
Don’t pay much attn to the Jets bc I’m a Giants fan (and we have our own issues). At least we had a real good draft this Spring.
I know we’re all rooting for our Knick young guns to develop – that’s extremely important. I also believe that there’s two much more important seismic shifts that can happen for us to finally change our fortunes: Dolan being serious about selling the team, and getting the #1 draft pick. I believe these two events will change our karmic alignment away from #DolansRazor.
A man can dream. Happy New Year everyone!
I love Kanter and think he could be a good piece, but this is a business and the 2019 draft and the kids already on the team are the imperative. Sorry. I hope he gets traded along with Lee and Thomas to playoff teams for cap space and or picks.
I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! May 2018 be the last losing season!
@29 – I’m OK with the #3 pick for the Jets being either OT Jonah Williams or DE Josh Allen but they must hit on it. I would love to get another 1st somehow. Good news is that the Jets don’t have a 2nd round pick to screw up. They have to bolster the OL further by signing FA’s.
it’s all such a non-story. kanter is an emotional guy, remember when he broke his forearm and missed a month because he punched a chair during a game? this is nothing. he’s also an almost worthless basketball player in the current nba, except maybe in a very well curated situation. the Knicks have no responsibility to play him even if it would help his future salary (which it probably wouldn’t), and he has every right to whine about it. he is the same guy who played 45 total minutes in a playoff series even though his opponent had a big who couldn’t shoot and his teams had zero depth. he has about as much right to complain about the man fucking with his rightful earnings power as Cuban does the cap gains taxes for selling broadcast.com, but that doesn’t mean he can’t cry a little. Kanter sulking isn’t going to make an ounce of difference to whether Mitch or Knox develop into good players. who cares.
You know what else can fuckeith your next paycheck? Publicly whining about not starting when your team has won 9 games and everyone in the league knows you suck at defense. Kanter could thrive in a bench role and have easier defensive assignments which could mean he gets a decent contract next year as a back up big. But instead he’s bitching about moving to the bench when it’s not even set in stone that he’ll remain there for more than a few games. Can’t wait to get this dude off our team. He’s all talk.
Kanter is, by some measures at least, the worst defensive Center in the nba – where Center is perhaps the most important defensive position. He’s so bad that other players frequently openly mock him for it, something that doesn’t happen a lot in the NBA. I agree that he has a right to be upset if he feels he’s losing out on money as a result of his playing time but he is next level delusional if he thinks he’d be adding to wins or competing for the ASG.